In environments where paper currency is used and stored, it is desirable to have an alarm system in place. Generally, such an alarm system, upon being triggered, provides a remote alarm signal, activates a camera or audible alert sound, or initiates other similar steps to indicate that the currency has been unlawfully taken. For example, cash drawer structures full of currency are often used, such as in banks or retail establishments, wherein a teller or cashier exchanges currency back and forth between customers and the cash drawer during transactions. Additionally, currency may be stored in such cash drawers between business hours. Accordingly, it is desirable to have an alarm system which initiates an alarm sequence when currency is unlawfully removed from the cash drawer by a thief, cashier or teller under the control of a thief, such as at gunpoint in an armed robbery.
Alarms for cash drawers are often silent alarms which initiate an alarm sequence in a remote location to alert the proper authorities without alerting the thief. Silent alarms are desirable because they fool the thief into believing that he has not been detected. Furthermore, silent alarms do not scare the thief and aggravate what may be an already dangerous situation, for example, when the robbery is taking place at gunpoint. Silent alarms, are usually triggered in an unobtrusive manner to prevent the thief from knowing that an alarm has been initiated even if he cannot see or hear the alarm.
One popular unobtrusive and silent alarming system utilized in cash drawers is the money clip-style alarm system. Clip-style alarm systems use a money clip device located within a currency compartment in the cash drawer. The money clip physically grasps or contacts a currency bill or a stack of bills within the drawer. The bill stack suspends or holds a section of the clip away from a triggering device. When the stack is removed from the clip, the suspended clip section falls or otherwise moves to contact the triggering device and initiate an alarm. While such clips have the advantages of simple operation and unobtrusiveness in the drawer, therefore often going unnoticed, clip-style alarm devices generally require extensive installation procedures thus making them inconvenient to assemble, complicated to install, expensive, and subject to false alarms.
Installation of many prior art clip-style alarms requires extensive retrofitting of an existing cash drawer structure. Generally, a large number of holes must be drilled within the cash drawer and supporting structure to mount and install the clip-style device and the various supporting wires, plugs and connectors. Alternatively, the cash drawer structure may have to be specially manufactured with a clip-style alarm system assembled therein. The system must then be hardwired to connecting wires in a wall or floor to connect the system to the remote alarm circuitry. The dedicated hard wiring between the cash drawer and the external alarm circuitry makes the system generally immobile. Furthermore, the various wires, plugs and connections extending between the clip device and the cash drawer makes efficient removal of all of the currency from the cash drawer difficult.
For example, it is often desirable to remove the currency from the cash drawer at the end of the business day and place it in a vault or some other safe structure for the evening. The currency is then returned to the cash drawer by the teller at the start of the next business day. With various currency denominations in a single cash drawer, it is impractical and inefficient to remove each currency stack individually. Therefore, tray inserts full of currency of different denominations are often used so that a teller may remove all of the currency at once by removing the tray. However, since the trays have to be fitted with the clip device when using a clip-style alarm system, the tray will need to be connected by wires and other connectors to the cash drawer and the alarm system. Consequently, either the trays cannot be readily removed, or, upon removal of a tray from a cash drawer, various steps need to be taken to disconnect the wires, plugs and other connections between the tray and the cash drawer.
Extensive disconnection and reconnection of the tray and money clip to the alarm system in the cash drawer makes use of such alarms inconvenient for the tellers and adds to the amount of time that it takes to close up at the end of the business day and open up at the start of the next business day. Additionally, the clip devices and the system wiring are exposed to constant movement during disconnection and reconnection which results in part breakage, connector damage and loose wiring which may disarm the alarm system. Consequently, prior art money clip alarm systems need constant maintenance and part replacement, thereby increasing the cost of such systems.
Furthermore, with prior art clip-style systems, steps must be taken during disconnection and reconnection of the tray to the cash drawer to prevent a false alarm from sounding. As may be appreciated, the extensive efforts required on behalf of the teller to remove and return a tray to a cash drawer often causes the money clip to be inadvertently moved and the alarm activated. Also, the time spent disconnecting and removing the tray after the clip has been disconnected from the alarm system leaves a window of time in which a thief might steal the currency from the tray without sounding an alarm.
The extensive retrofitting, installation and repairs required to utilize prior art money clip-style alarm systems drives up the overall expense of the system. Therefore, while the operation of a clip-style alarm system is relatively simple and reliable, the difficulties encountered in installing and using the prior art clip-style systems makes the cost of such systems relatively high.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a money removal sensor system, and preferably a system utilizing a money clip-style device, which may be readily installed in a cash drawer with minimal retrofitting, costs and complexity. Furthermore, it is desirable to have a clip-style alarm system which allows rapid and easy removal of a tray full of currency from the cash drawer without disconnecting numerous wires and other connections between the tray and the drawer. Another objective is an alarm system which requires few or no complex steps to disengage the alarm initiating circuitry prior to removing the tray, thereby decreasing the amount of false alarms associated with removing and returning the tray to the cash drawer. Further, it is an objective to have a system in which the currency tray is transferred to and from the cash drawer rapidly, thus closing the window of opportunity that a thief may have to steal money after the alarm system has been disconnected. These and other objectives are accomplished by the present invention as described hereinbelow.